by David Ballheimer...

Hendon suffered their worst defeat for more than two decades as Lowestoft Town crushed the Greens 8–1 at Crown Meadow on Saturday.

In a match where neither team’s defence showed up, if both forward lines had converted all their good (not half- or quarter-) chances the final score might have been around a rugby-like 21–9.

Injuries ruled out James Parker, Craig Vargas, Lee O’Leary and Greg Ngoyi, Jamie Busby was ill, Jason Mason unavailable and Michael Peacock, Daniel Sintim, Kevin Maclaren and Glenn Garner were all serving suspensions. In addition, Dave Diedhiou played despite having worked a ten-hour overnight shift and gone straight from work to catch the coach, while Scott Cousins battled on with the flu.

All this meant that Hendon had 14 outfielders to choose from, so Brian Haule, James Burgess and Eddie Munnelly were on the bench alongside James Reading. John Fletcher got the start, but he was far from fully fit and immobility was clinically found out by a rampant Trawlerboys outfit.

A long journey to Lowestoft through pouring rain made Hendon people concerned that their trip might have been in vain. Although it continued to rain for almost the whole of the 90 minutes, the Suffolk coast had suffered little more than heavy, persistent drizzle while the south-east was deluged. Home officials admitted that if there had been heavy rain during the morning, the match would have been in some doubt. By 4.50 on Saturday evening, Hendon personnel probably wished that their journeys had been in vain and they would have had to do the trip again.

It took Lowestoft barely five minutes to break the deadlock as a cross from the right was converted by Michael Frew. Things got worse for Hendon 11 minutes later, when Matt Nolan scored with a free header from six yards out. Berkley Laurencin injured himself to try to stop Nolan, but was able to continue.

Hendon then had a very good spell and wasted three excellent scoring opportunities in a few minutes. In the 19th minute, Belal Aite-Ouakrim was denied by a good one-on-one block by Andy Reynolds, who had been very quick to cut down the angle as the ball reached the striker.

A minute later, Aaron Morgan fired wide from a very good position and Casey Maclaren had a shot blocked. At this stage, the feeling among Hendon fans was that if they could score the next goal, they had every chance of getting back into the game.

Instead, just before half-time – and immediately after it – the Trawlerboys delivered three hammer blows. Absolutely no one made it difficult for Joe Francis as he ran through the defence and fired into the net after 44 minutes.

Less than a minute later, Nolan was again left completely unmarked and he bagged his second of the afternoon.

Before the second half started, Burgess and Haule came on for Fletcher and Jonathan Coke as Hendon went to a three-man defence, with Lubo Guentchev and Danny Dyer as wing-backs, but it is not a role the former is comfortable with. And, 30 seconds after the resumption, Scott Mitchell went on 40-yard run before shooting into the bottom corner.

Hendon finally scored a goal in the 53rd minute, Aite-Ouakrim scoring from close range. Even with more than half an hour to go, it couldn’t be considered more than a consolation effort.

With 25 minutes remaining, Russell Stock and Adrian Forbes replaced Nolan and Frew, the former looking very unhappy to be denied the chance of a hat-trick. It took under a minute for Nolan’s replacement, Stock, to get his name on the scoresheet.

For the next 15 minutes there was almost a chance every other minute, evenly spread between the team, but all were spurned. During this time Hendon sent on Eddie Munnelly to replace Dyer, while Jamie Godbold took over from Francis.

The final indignities for Hendon came in the last ten minutes, when Lowestoft added goals number seven and eight. First Burgess sliced an attempted clearance just inside his far post for an own goal. Then Jamie Goldbold had all the time in the world to get his name on the scoresheet.

After the match, a shell-shocked and furious Gary McCann said: “We have had 10 players out, but I won’t use that as an excuse for that performance.”

Assistant manager Freddie Hyatt said, “This was the most embarrassing performance I have been involved in as a player or a coach. Even with the players we put out there was no reason why we could not have won the game.”

Team: Laurencin, Coke (Haule, HT), Cousins, C. Maclaren, Fletcher (Busby, HT), Fraser, Guentchev, Diedhiou, Morgan, Aite-Ouakrim, Dyer (Munnelly, 72). Unused sub: J. Reading (gk)